Hi everyone,

I'm currently writing the research proposal for my full-time MA diss (which is also an assessed piece of my MA), but I'm just a bit unsure about something and I'd be grateful if anyone could help.

I'm planning on doing semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Obviously I don't know exactly how many participants I'm actually going to be capable of getting and interviewing/transcribing/analysing etc, but if I say 10 participants does that sound about right?

Thanks :)

Hi button! I am doing a PhD in clinical psychology which is mostly quantitative, but I am doing a small qualitative study as well, using semi-structured interviews which will be analysed using IPA (interpretative phenomenological analysis). I am aiming for up to 90 people in my quant study but just 8-10 people for the qual study, and this is perfectly acceptable in my field- most published studies of this kind using a clinical population have about 6-12 participants because the analysis is so rigorous and time-consuming, although of course there are some studies which are larger. I would think 10 should be fine although I would check with your supervisor what he/she thinks is a good number to aim for and of course it will depend on your population and how accessible they are as well. Best of luck, KB

Keenbean, thankyou! Glad I'm on the right lines but will also talk to my supervisor about it :-)